The Odds Are Stacked Against Gifted Teens as They Apply for College – /Film

Lowell Excessive College in San Francisco is the highest public faculty within the metropolis. Each scholar is virtually a genius and can do every thing they will with a purpose to be accepted to varsities like Stanford, Harvard, Brown, MIT, UCLA, UC Berkeley, and extra. Whereas it'd look like only a first world drawback for these teenagers to fret about what upscale, prestigious college they’re attempting to attend, the documentary Strive More durable! from director Debbie Lum paints a common portrait of the challenges going through right this moment’s teenagers as they’re not solely scrutinized by their mother and father and faculty admission officers, however continually evaluating themselves to their friends as they struggle to determine how one can stand out from the gang.

Strive More durable! follows college students of their senior yr of highschool as they put together for the grueling means of making use of to school. For a lot of teenagers, it is a laborious course of crammed with software charges, introspective essays, tough conversations with mother and father, and quite a lot of growing stress. For college kids at Lowell, it’s even worse. That is the form of establishment the place over 4,000 advance placement checks are administered annually. It’s a college the place even the cool youngsters are nerds, and it’s not sufficient to have a 4.0 GPA. It's important to try to be the very best at every thing, otherwise you’re merely not going to chop it.

The documentary hones in on a handful of scholars to offer a extra private have a look at the stress they face from faculties, mother and father, and even themselves. There’s Rachael, a biracial woman who’s hesitant to observe her personal needs for concern of disappointing her mom. Sophia, a confident Asian woman who carries the boldness and maturity of an expert twentysomething lady. Ian, one of many few college students who doesn’t have mother and father pressuring him to do one thing that received’t make him completely satisfied, which might be why he’s so informal and funky all through the movie. Alvan (seen above), the nerdiest of the nerds, who’s stuffed with charisma and goofiness, usually strolling round in a leather-based baseball cap with Batman ears and dancing within the hallways. And eventually, we now have Shea, the one junior topic on this documentary, and maybe the child with the most important hurdles to beat out of any of them. That’s as a result of Shea’s father is a drug addict and a deadbeat, and he’s been pressured to maintain himself all through his teen years as his grandmother gives monetary assist.

Although there are standard speaking heads in Strive More durable!, director Debbie Lum extra usually veers in the direction of capturing candid footage of scholars in school, having seemingly grabbed them for extra informal interviews and interactions at opportune occasions. This ends in a way more real, snug dialogue, and it creates a pure connection between the viewers and the scholars. They find yourself feeling like youngsters you would possibly know in your neighborhood relatively than the themes of a documentary. It additionally helps that Lum spends time at dwelling with these college students, capturing conversations with their mother and father and attending to understand how their dwelling life influences their teachers and plans for the long run, for higher or worse.

However as a lot as Strive More durable! focuses on these particular college students, it serves a wider goal in illustrating the more and more tough requirements by which college students are judged throughout the faculty software course of. One physics trainer notes that again within the Nineties, it was simple for a scholar to get into UC Berkeley with a B-average. Right now, many faculties like UC Berkeley have dropped their acceptance charges by 50% or extra, making it tougher than ever to land an more and more coveted spot that's based mostly on much more than grades these days.

It’s not simply tutorial and extracurricular necessities that make the school software course of a complete nightmare. An increasing number of faculties aren’t simply attempting to create numerous campuses or discover the very best tutorial college students, however they’re looking for college students that greatest match the college’s picture. Which means college students must usually promote themselves by digging into their racial and sophistication identities, taking part in up their hardships, and figuring out what makes them stand out from a pack of equally distinctive college students. These are youngsters who're nonetheless determining who they’re going to be, and so they’re anticipated to completely outline themselves with a purpose to be judged by full strangers. There are full grown adults who can’t even do this.

This tough process additionally creates a singular drawback for Lowell, which has a predominantly Asian-American scholar physique. Regardless of being greater than certified to be accepted to those faculties, most of them received’t get in just because the college doesn’t need their very own inhabitants to be made up of principally Asian-American college students. On prime of that, it's believed that Stanford doesn’t settle for quite a lot of Lowell college students as a result of they’re considered as stereotypical, robotic college students who solely study data to carry out effectively on checks. Lowell college students are so continuously dismissed from many prime faculties that considered one of Lowell’s lecturers has develop into a voice of purpose to assist college students understand that being rejected from Stanford, Harvard or UC Berkeley isn’t the tip of the world, and in lots of circumstances, there’s nothing greater than they will do with a purpose to be accepted.

The truth that all of that is one thing youngsters must take care of earlier than they’re even totally shaped adults is mind-boggling. And these actuality checks make you're feeling much more for the scholars on the heart of Strive More durable! as they push themselves to do every thing they will with a purpose to get accepted to those faculty. However much more heart-wrenching is watching these youngsters take care of the stress a few of their mother and father placed on them. Rachael’s mom appears oblivious to the battle she’s creating in her daughter’s coronary heart as she struggles to decide on between the college she needs and the college she thinks will make her mom completely satisfied. Alvan’s mom has defined to him that she’s monitoring him in a metaphorical field that she's going to slowly increase till she feels he’s able to make all of his personal selections. Figuring out the scrutiny these youngsters are beneath each single day makes among the inevitable rejections that every of those college students face that rather more upsetting, even when the documentary doesn’t play them up for drama. Nevertheless it additionally makes their triumphs considerably extra satisfying.

Finally, Strive More durable! paints a hopeful image for these college students. And it’s much more encouraging while you see these college students take all of the stress in stride, even exhibiting nice aplomb within the face of rejection. In any case, even when a few of them didn’t get into the college of their desires, they’re nonetheless off to school to write down the subsequent chapter of their life. The true problem will probably be figuring out whether or not all that onerous work was value it ultimately. However there’s in all probability a complete different documentary (or a number of) that we’ll want with a purpose to reply that query.

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